The social network for fine art collectors.

Brooklyn Bridge Banners May Be 'Art Project'

New York City -- Police officials cited art, not terrorism, as a possible motive of the people who put bleached-out American flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge where the Stars and Stripes usually fly.

Art collectors of ArtKabinett social media network saw the flags flying on top of the Brooklyn Bridge earlier this week

The white banners were discovered this week on the towers at opposite ends of the bridge and were later removed.

Deputy Police Commissioner John Miller said the incident had “no particular nexus” to terrorism or politics.

“This may be somebody’s art project or an attempt to make some sort of statement, but at this time it’s not clear what that statement is,” Miller told a packed news briefing at police headquarters.

Surveillance video shows a group of at least four or five people crossing the bridge around 3:10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

They are of interest to police because shortly afterward the lights illuminating the flags flickered and went out. Police later discovered the beacons had been covered with aluminum pans.

At least some of perpetrators had experience with climbing for construction or other work, Miller said.

Reports of the incident and photos went viral on the Internet. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police officer, said in a statement that he plans to offer a reward for information related to the arrest of suspects.

City Council member Mark Weprin said he was stunned by the incident and called for the NYPD to probe how someone was able to bypass patrol cars and security cameras. Adams said on his Twitter feed that if the incident was “someone’s idea of a joke,” he wasn’t laughing.

“We won’t surrender our public safety to anyone,” Adams said. “Political and social expression, whatever its message may be, has a place in our society, but not at the expense of others’ security.”

Skateboarder Suspect

A skateboarder and four young pals emerged Wednesday as the prime suspects who eluded around-the-clock NYPD security to scale the venerable Brooklyn Bridge and raise two white flags.

While cops had no real leads, the five youths wanted for questioning were described as in their late teens or early 20s, a source told the New York Daily News.

New Yorkers interviewed on the bridge amid ramped-up security wonder how anyone could reach the top of the two towers on the 131-year-old landmark.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883 and was once the longest suspension bridge in the world, carries more than 120,000 vehicles, 4,000 pedestrians and 3,000 bicyclists every day, according to the city’s Department of Transportation, which referred calls about the incident to the NYPD.

The incident comes just months after security breaches at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. In March, a teenager from New Jersey crawled through a fence, rode an elevator and climbed to the roof of 1 World Trade Center, 1,368 feet (417 meters) above ground. Six months earlier, three men parachuted from the roof.